


City Symphony

by fourfreedoms



Category: Generation Kill
Genre: Alternate Universe, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-07-22
Updated: 2010-07-22
Packaged: 2017-10-21 15:34:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,191
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/226763
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fourfreedoms/pseuds/fourfreedoms
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dancer meets Skater Boy. Dancer and skater boy fall in love. Oldest story in the world. (New ending that includes a little somethin' somethin')</p>
            </blockquote>





	City Symphony

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [bijoux](http://bijoux.livejournal.com)'s prompt: _Dance School AU, where Brad and the rest of them are students at like Julliard, studying ballet or modern dance or whatever, and Nate's this visiting transfer student from the Royal Ballet School... and then sexy shenanigans ensue or something_ It came out totally different. Brad is not a dancer and Nate's the Juilliard student, but hopefully she'll still think it fits the spirit of her prompt.

He saw him on the subway on the Uptown & Queens side, a Downtown & Brooklyn train passing by while he stared. He was with a group of tall willowy kids and they clustered around him like he was their shepherd serenely deigning to herd them about. There was something odd about him, something about the way he moved that was…well, off. Brad couldn’t place it.

“What are you staring at?” Ray asked, digging an elbow into his side.

Brad shook his head and shrugged. “Dunno, some guy on the opposite track.”

Ray followed his gaze. “Wow, somebody got a fire extinguisher? We need to put out those flames.” He laughed. “Ah, I crack myself up. That is some straight up homo, right there.”

Brad rolled his eyes and shoved at Ray, looking up just in time to catch the guy’s eyes passing right over him. His mouth was set in a funny cold half-amused but unamused line. Brad shoved at Ray again for good measure. “Anybody ever tell you children should be seen and not heard? Go bother Walt.”

“Okay, daddy,” Ray cackled.

*

He ran into him, literally, at the Strand. He was strolling around a corner, paying more attention to the signs for sci-fi and fantasy than his surroundings. He walked straight into him, iced tea exploding between their bodies, books and papers flying everywhere out of the guy’s messenger bag.

“Oh, shiiiiiiit,” the guy said, practically throwing the tea aside to gather his soggy papers together.

“Apologies, I wasn’t watching where I was—” Brad started, bending down to hand him a few pages that escaped the tea.

“No no, my fault, my fault,” the guy replied. He looked up at Brad with a critical eye through long fringed lashes, wilted papers in one hand. “Good thing you’re wearing black.”

“Yeeeeah,” Brad said, pulling his wet shirt away from his chest experimentally. “Can I buy you another tea or something? To replace the one you lost?”

The guy rolled up to his feet in one fluid movement, shoving the papers back into his bag. He hesitated for a moment and then said, “Okay, why not? Let me just pay for these,” showing Brad a stack of books.

He bought a beaten up copy of MacIntyre’s _After Virtue_ with an impressive looking AmEx. He raised his brows at Brad’s gaze and then flicked it into his wallet. Brad didn’t know why he offered to buy some random gay guy a replacement tea. Brad wasn’t an expert, but he was pretty sure that wallet was designer. Ray would be psychoanalyzing him right now if he were here.

“One second,” Brad told him as they headed for the door. He produced a crumpled ace of clubs and handed it to the pierced and sullen girl behind the counter, accepting the beat up skate board she handed over.

The guy smiled and held the door open for him.

“So what’s your name?” Brad said, directing them toward the Grey Dog Café.

“Nate,” he said, producing his hand. “Nice to meet you.”

Brad took it, surprised almost by Nate’s strong grip. His face must’ve given it away because Nate squeezed and let go. “It’s what you get from lifting girls up and down all day.”

“Sorry?” Brad blinked at him.

Nate lifted his shoulder in an elegant shrug. “I’m a dancer.”

Brad laughed. “Of course you are.”

“Are you any good?” Nate asked, tilting his head in the direction of Brad’s board.

“Hmm? Oh.” Brad shrugged and pretended to think about it. He grinned. “Let’s just say that I'm more than adequate.”

He bought Nate a new tea and then saluted a goodbye, before jumping on his board and heading towards Union Square.

“See you around,” Nate called after him.

Brad looked back briefly to see Nate walking in the opposite direction, face already buried into the book. A dancer? What a weirdo.

*

Which is why it was just his luck that he ran into Nate again at a party his friend Ivy was hosting on the lower east side. “You know Nate?” Ivy said, after witnessing Nate and Brad’s dual double take and ‘hey, man’s.

“Yeah, we’ve met,” Nate said, “Never got your name.”

“Brad,” he said, shoving his hands into his pockets.

“Brad’s kind of a social retard,” Ivy said to Nate, clapping Brad affectionately on the shoulder. “He tutored me in math last year after I begged him.” She left to go say hi to a few other friends.

“I didn’t peg you for the school type,” Nate said, holding a totally non-pussy beer Brad noted.

“I’m not.”

“What?”

“I’m not in school. I work for a skate shop.” He shrugged. He didn’t say he couldn’t afford school even if he wanted to go, but Nate’s expression wasn’t giving anything away. Brad had no idea what he was thinking. He offered lamely, “Just not how life worked out.”

Nate smiled. “I get that.”

“Yeah?”

“You think my family is happy that I’m getting a degree in dance rather than economics?”

“I have no idea, man,” Brad replied with a shrug. He didn’t have one of those either, so it was tough to say.

Ray showed up at that moment, hanging all over Brad, already sloppy drunk. “Oh hey, it’s the flamer, fancy meeting you,” he said blearily. Brad expected Nate to get upset or huffy, but the half amused unamused look was back. He had no idea how Nate’s face did that.

“Sorry, Ray’s an inbred piece of shit by way of that great port of call, Jersey.”

“No, don’t worry about it, I _am_ a flamer,” he said, taking a gulp of beer. “But I can suck the cork out of a bottle, so I suppose there is that.”

Brad and Ray choked in unison on their drinks. Brad spluttered and wiped his mouth and Nate lifted a brow and laughed. “Good night, ladies.”

“Did he really say that?” Ray asked, using the wall to hold himself up. “He really said that, didn’t he!”

Brad watched Nate disappear into the crowd of party goers and merely nodded.

*

He met up with Ivy two weeks later on a Tuesday. They were going for sushi and drinks and a late night horror film at the Village East. “We have to stop by Lincoln Center to meet Nate.”

“What?”

“I hope you don’t mind, I didn’t really get to catch up with him at my party, and I haven’t seen him in forever.”

“No, it’s…fine,” Brad shrugged; he set his board down and coasted gently alongside her as they navigated the congested streets. “How do you know Nate?”

“We went to the same high school in Maryland,” Ivy replied, throwing her hair over her shoulder. “He’s a really cool guy, ran track, headed up the school newspaper. I didn’t even know he was going to Juilliard until they published the senior edition of the paper.”

“Oh yeah?” Brad replied, thinking back to the first time he saw Nate, getting off the subway on the opposite platform. He moved like a dancer, even if Brad didn’t know what it was at the time.

They were early to meet Nate so the receptionist pointed them to Studio 3 with a finger over her lips. They walked in as Nate was launching into some gravity-defying leaps and turns, soaring across the floor to one of the movements from Carmina Burana. Brad couldn’t deny he was good. He’d never really watched ballet but the way he exploded upward only to land on the ground like he was weightless was impressive. Nate’s eyes were fixed on a corner of the room, but his gaze was turned inwards. He looked like he was flying and drunk off the sensation completely. Brad understood the feeling. He got it doing an Ollie 180 off the vert.

The teacher clapped when the music cut out and then started lecturing Nate on everything he did wrong while he toweled his face off and sucked on a water bottle. Nate caught their eye and nodded his head. When Ivy whooped and called, “Go Nate!” he smiled, but quickly turned back to his teacher, who had launched into an impressive tirade on how sloppy the performance was.

She drew her hands together and said, “Tighter, Nate, I know you can do tighter.”

He nodded, face earnest. “Next time, Madame Turner.”

When the teacher was done with him he came over, and Brad realized that Nate’s shiny black tights really left nothing to the imagination. “You ever spring wood in those?”

Ivy smacked his shoulder and Nate laughed like he couldn’t help himself. “It's been known to happen to a dancer time and again. Hopefully not during a performance.” He took another long gulp of water. “Just give me fifteen minutes to shower and change, and we’ll go.”

He turned around and Brad watched the muscles in his ass tense and flex. He wasn’t sure he’d ever seen such an ass. “Huh,” he said, tracking Nate to the door. He could see the indents in his spine through the tights. He supposed that was the point. Nate’s clothes betrayed every muscle movement that made those aerials possible. Nate might as well be naked for all the fabric hid. Ivy smacked his shoulder again and cleared her throat.

Brad looked at her. “This is…this is _curiosity_ here. He must be the most secure person on earth.”

“After you, of course?” she asked with a laugh.

Brad snorted and ignored the veiled dig about his arrogance. “I’m pretty sure you could slice bread off that ass.”

“It’s a pretty awesome ass,” Ivy said like she was agreeing with him.

“That’s not what I said.”

“Don’t worry. I’m sure there are girls out there who will love your badonkadonk.”

Brad pretended to peer back over his shoulder. “They better.”

*

Nate met them out on the sidewalk, hair wet and falling into his eyes. He wore jeans and a hoodie and somehow still managed to look like he’d be let into a five star, four course, grat-included restaurant.

“What?” Nate asked, running a hand through his hair self-consciously.

Brad looked down at his own busted hands, gotten from long hours of slinging tricks off the city walls. He smiled. “Nothing.”

Brad decided he liked Nate somewhere between the sushi and the showing of Suspiria. Ivy apologized to Nate for Ray again over Caterpillar Rolls and Torikatsu.

“He’s like the most politically incorrect person ever. You would never know that he’s like the Columbia psych department darling,” Ivy said with a shrug.

Nate leaned his head on his hand, swirling his finger around the lip of his glass of Sapporo. “How do you know him?”

Brad laughed. “He had a horrible time his first week of school, didn’t make any friends, wound up in the skate shop and started crying when I asked him if he wanted me to rotate the wheels on his skateboard. He’s been stuck to me like glue ever since.” Brad shrugged.

At the movie theater Nate bought a jumbo popcorn and soda while Ivy winced. “How can you eat during horror?” she asked plaintively. “We just had dinner.”

“Dario Argento makes me hungry,” he shrugged apologetically and offered the tub of popcorn to Brad. Brad dug a hand in and popped the fistful of kernels into his mouth.

“You two are sick,” she said and insisted on sitting between them: “In case I need somebody’s arm to grab.”

“Grab his,” Brad replied. “I don’t go in for that cuddling shit.”

“It’s okay, Ivy, I am man enough to protect you,” Nate said, wrapping an arm around her shoulders.

Ivy abandoned them after the movie for a party in Williamsburg. “You should come,” she said, but both Nate and Brad begged off. She gave Brad a calculating look before disappearing down into the subway on First Avenue. He ignored it and looked back at Nate. “Where to?”

“I dunno, drink?”

Brad grinned. “I know a place.”

They did ten for ten shots at International Bar while the regulars looked on, amused. They finally got kicked out after a guy put the Violent Femmes “Blister in the Sun” on for the eighth time, in spite of Brad’s warning that he was going to kick his ass if he touched the juke box one more time.

“See you next week, Brad,” the bouncer said cheerfully, ejecting them both.

“Next week, Rudy,” he replied, picking himself up. Nate watched, hovering just outside the International’s door, looking slightly uncertain. Brad shook himself and said, “Huh, I could really go for a slice of pizza.”

“I couldn’t possibly eat anything else,” Nate replied, but he said it wistfully. Like he was fully aware of the fact that they were heading right towards Artichoke and he had cash in his wallet.

Brad sobered momentarily. He ducked behind Nate and looked at him with a critical eye. “You’re not watching your weight are you? Don’t want your ass getting any bigger.”

“Fuck you,” Nate replied without heat. “Ivy told me you said my ass was awesome.”

“ _She_ said your ass was awesome. I think your ass could be a dangerous weapon.”

Nate punched at his shoulder and Brad dodged it easily. “Weak,” he said, shaking his head. “Okay ballet man, show me something really cool.”

Nate snorted. “My little performance to _Uf Dem Anger_ didn’t inspire you?”

Brad yawned theatrically. “Nah, I’m pretty sure Ray could do that.”

“Bet you he can’t do this,” Nate replied, bending his body back until his palms hit the ground, his spine creating a perfect arch. His legs followed the motion through, like a backwards walk over, until he was standing up again.

Brad golf clapped. “You’re right, I’m pretty sure he can’t.”

“That is all I aspire to in life—to do backbends better than Ray Person.” He smiled and started heading up the street. “Any other bars you want to get thrown out of?”

Brad swallowed. He kept seeing Nate’s hoodie and shirt drop down, revealing that narrow strip of pale flesh. It was…disconcerting. He shook his head to clear it.

“Brad?” Nate said, looking over his shoulder. The glance was almost coy. What was Nate doing to him?

He realized he hadn’t answered Nate’s question. “I’m going to call it a night.” Nate blinked, surprised and maybe a little hurt. “Some of us have to work on the weekends,” he said, softening the blow. He didn’t know why he cared. He never cared. If people gave a shit about what he was doing, it was his prerogative not to give shit about their giving a shit.

*

It was a nice day, hot but dry and windy, and Riverside Park was packed with joggers and cyclists and little kids with their parents. There was a sizable crowd glued to the fence of the skate park watching the skaters and a whole bunch of middle schoolers in chunky vans who didn’t deserve to be there. Ray loved it, joshing with the little kids on miniature fiberglass boards they’d gotten for Christmas, but Brad ignored everything. This was the closest he got to the zen Rudy was always preaching about. He did a front side pop shove-it into a fakie rock, landing it effortlessly. He followed it with a 360 Heel Flip, only coming back to the world to the sound of a person clapping.

He looked up and saw Nate on the other side of the fence, sweaty from a run, black iPod shuffle clipped to his Maryland Terrapins shirt. Brad skated up to the fence, slashing his board to a stop.

“You watch football?” he asked, looking at Nate’s chest.

“You always wear black?” Nate replied in the same tone.

Brad looked down at his black t-shirt and jeans and grinned. “Actually, pretty much.”

“Ah, then my elucidative observation came to naught,” Nate replied, eyes crinkling with a smile.

He looked like he was getting ready to run off again, so Brad said the first thing that popped in his head, “Do you want to grab brunch at Kitchenette?”

“Brunch?” Nate paused and then laughed. “I didn’t really think you were the brunch type.”

“Your attempts to pigeon-hole me sadden me greatly,” he said, shaking his head with mock gravity. “Only time you can get pancakes and a tuna melt with fries at the same time. Brunch was the best invention of the western world.”

“Well in that case, brunch it is.”

“Good, take this.” He tossed his board to Nate over the chainlink fence. He nearly dropped it in surprise.

“What are you…” he started and then backed up dramatically as Brad placed both of his palms on the rusty metal. Brad snorted out a laugh at the look on his face and then hoisted himself up in a smooth move, vaulting over the fence. He landed neatly beside Nate and reached out for his board. Nate handed it over silently.

“Thanks,” Brad said and then called back over his shoulder, “Later, Ray!”

Ray looked up from the pre-teen girl he was flirting with and shouted, “Are you getting brunch without me, fucker?”

Brad waved without turning around, unable to smother a smile. He looked over at Nate and found him watching Brad with inscrutable eyes. Brad raised a brow and Nate shook his head. “I find the particulars of your friendship with Ray to be somewhat…”

“Mystifying?” Brad offered. He shook his head. “Yes, this observation has been expressed to me on multiple occasions. I’m afraid that faux anti-intellectual barnacle and I are doomed to be friends for reasons nobody can understand.”

“Is that what he’d say?” Nate replied.

“I’m pretty sure he’d call me an asocial asshole.”

“With mild sociopathic tendencies, don’t forget,” Ray said from Nate’s other side, coasting up on his board. Brad rolled his eyes. Ray offered a hand to Nate, “I’m Ray, by the way.”

Nate shot a quick look at Brad and then looked back at Ray. “We’ve met,” he said dryly.

“Shit, really?” Ray said, pushing his board with one foot and scratching his head at the same time. “I must have been fuuuuuucked up.”

“I’m the flamer,” Nate told him, amused.

Comprehension dawned on Ray’s face. “The ballerina who can suck corks out of bottles! I remember you!”

Nate coughed. Brad reached behind Nate and shoved Ray off his board. “Locate your manners, dildo.”

Ray stumbled and chortled, board sailing out in front of him. “After you locate your testicles!” he cried, chasing the skateboard down the street.

*

“I guess I get why you like him,” Ray told him, hanging off the bar on the subway back to Brad’s place in Flatbush, pretending to do pull-ups.

“What?” Brad replied, headphones on. He was listening to Boston, taking up more space on the bench seat than was strictly courteous.

“I said I like your girlfriend!” Ray repeated, louder.

“Shut up, Ray,” he replied, not bothering to rise to the bait. Nate was Nate, and so what if Brad did like him? He made sense. Other people rarely made sense. And Nate was interesting. He was made up of anomalies. Like he lived to dance, but he had all these sentimental ideals about government and helping people. He came from a wealthy family, but he wasn’t obnoxious. He didn’t have to work, but he had a job at a tutoring center that sucked up a lot of his free time. Brad liked puzzles. As soon as he worked Nate out, he’d move on.

*

On a Thursday after a tough day at the shop, Ivy invited Brad and Ray out to go barhopping. Brad had just spent his last paycheck putting a new air filter and wheels onto the old Honda Triumph he was attempting to fix up.

He said no. Ivy replied with, “Your loss,” and hung up like she was frustrated. Brad didn’t know what her problem was. When he met Ray at the park the next day he was wearing dark glasses and holding a plain Pinkberry with trembling hands.

“What happened?”

“Ballerina happened,” Ray replied, spooning the yogurt into his mouth. Brad winced as it dripped down over Ray’s lower lip. “That sick fucker can drink like a fish.”

“Are you even able to stand?”

“I can manage,” Ray replied shakily. “Ugh, I’ve never been so hung-over in my life. My roommate says I puked up a metric ton. It’s like a new personal achievement.”

“Yeah that’s the word I'd use.” Brad replied, jumping on his board. Ray was walking so slowly that Brad could’ve turned circles around him. “What did you do?”

“You should’ve come, man,” Ray replied, taking another big bite. “We ended up at this club on Delancey. Some wigger, excuse my French, from Pelham Parkway challenged Nate to some bizarre dance off. He was really good.”

Brad snorted, unsurprised.

“He asked about you,” Ray said, giving him a sidelong glance behind the mirrored shades.

“What?” Brad asked, unhooking the latch on the fence of the skate park.

Ray shrugged. “I dunno, man, I think he had the wrong idea about you or something. Told him you were being a pussy old woman in Flatbush even though you had the day off AND you weren’t a homo.” Brad stared at him. Ray didn’t notice. He continued talking. “He was all good to know, and then he went home with some fag from Panic! At the Disco. Crisis averted.”

Brad didn’t bother asking Ray to clarify. For all he knew somebody from Panic! At The Disco actually had been at the club on Delancey and Nate _had_ gone home with him. He wondered if that’s what Nate had thought, that Brad was gay. He shrugged. “Sounds like an interesting time.”

Ray barely stayed on his board the entire morning. Finally he slumped over a patch of graffiti and said, “I’m going to go get stoned and write my sociology paper, this shit isn’t happening.”

“Yeah, sounds good,” Brad said absently, rolling to a stop in front of him.

“Tell me if you wanna hang tomorrow, 'cause there’s thing on Governor’s Island I was thinking about doing.”

“Okay,” Brad replied. When the gate clanged shut behind Ray, Brad dropped his foot to the pavement, staring at his surroundings—the empty skate park, the trees, the trash that was always spilling out of the cans—things he saw on a regular basis, but it all felt off somehow. He sighed and put his hands on hips, shaking his head. He didn’t know what was bothering him, but there was something clenched tight around his sternum, like his entire insides had been rearranged. “What the hell is going on?” he asked aloud. No answer came to him.

*

After weeks of throwing himself into work at the shop he’d scraped up enough cash for a new paintjob at Poke’s custom shop in Maspeth.

“Good to see you, dog,” Poke told him from the shop door, when he rode the Triumph up. “That clunker’s looking mighty good.”

Brad shrugged. “She’ll do.”

Poke smiled. “So what are you looking for?”

“Silver with navy detailing. Just simple.”

“Sounds good,” Poke rubbed the top of his head and gestured for Brad to wheel her in through the garage. “You still selling her?”

Brad looked at him. “Don’t have the space to keep them. You know how that goes.”

“I do, but, dog, you got me wondering…you ever think of setting up your own shop? Restoring old bikes?”

Brad paused and Poke took the bike from him, flicking down her kickstand and turning on a row of overhead lights. “You know I’ll never have that kind of money.”

“So do what the rest of us do, take out a loan.”

Brad shrugged again and turned around getting ready to go. “We’ll see,” he called over his shoulder.

Poke called after him. “Don’t you want more than working in a skate shop and tooling around with Ray?”

Brad laughed and waved, heading in the direction of the subway.

*

Nate called him one day while he was in the shop watching some wannabe try on Volcom apparel and reading a crappy sci-fi novel Eric had left behind when his shift was over. “They’re doing a special series on Tom Savini at the sunshine IFC, I was just wondering if you wanted to go.”

Brad paused for a second as the wannabe nearly upended a display of new fiberglass board options.

“Brad?”

“Yeah, sorry,” he said, focusing back in on the conversation. “That sounds cool, when?”

When his shift was over Brad went to Riverside Park to get some skating in. Nate’s last class ended at 6:30, so after an hour in the park he left for Lincoln Center. Nate was just walking out the doors, bag slung over his shoulder when his greeting smile turned into a look of alarm. It was like slow motion. Brad turned his head.

He didn’t know that people came to Lincoln Triangle to board, but this kid was trying to do a grind off a ledge right into a group of people. Brad watched in mounting horror as he landed the trick but went sailing off his board, pitching forward into traffic on Broadway. Brad ran out into the street, hauling both the board and the kid out of traffic and diving toward the sidewalk. A taxi sat on the horn as it flew past.

“What the hell, dude!” the kid cried sullenly as Brad picked himself up off of him. The kid looked at the one truck that was hanging awkwardly on the bottom of his board with a sour expression. “You’ve ruined my board.”

“What the hell?” Brad replied, incredulous. “You don’t do tricks into a crowd and you don’t do tricks anywhere your board could end up in traffic, because somebody could get hurt! It’s selfish little fuckwads like you who give skaters a bad name.”

“Oh yeah? Fuck you, asshole!” The kid said, wiping at his nose and running back toward his friends.

Brad took a deep breath and saw Nate standing a few feet away. He shook his head and sighed, heart rate finally slowing down. He felt a little bad, he knew the kid was just upset because he’d gotten such a bad scare, but Brad didn’t have the patience for little shits.

“You’re bleeding,” Nate said, his eyes soft.

Brad looked down his palms were completely fucked up, he had a new hole in the knee of his jeans, and there was a long scrape running from elbow to wrist filled with grit. He hadn’t even noticed the hurt.

“We should get you cleaned up.”

*

Nate slapped Brad’s hands away from his cuts when they got back to his three-bedroom apartment only a few blocks up. “You’ll just make it worse,” he said, disappearing into the bathroom. It was a nice apartment. There were framed posters and pieces of artwork on the wall, and the furniture hadn’t come from Ikea. He leaned against the back of a navy couch and tried not to bleed on anything. Nate came out of the bathroom a few moments later with a damp washcloth and a first-aid kit. He gently toweled the grit out of the scrapes and then slathered peroxide over it, giving Brad a dark look when he hissed and complained about the lack of warning.

“So I think I may have given you the wrong idea,” he told Brad as he wrapped Brad’s palms up in gauze and medical tape. Brad blinked and didn’t say anything. Nate didn’t meet his eyes, acting like pressing the tape down against the backs of Brad’s palms was the most important job in the world. “When I asked after you and Ray told me you weren’t into men, I just…well I like you Brad, but as a friend. I know you’re not gay. I’m just glad that you—“

Brad interrupted him with a kiss, one bandaged hand reaching up to cup Nate’s cheek. Nate stayed rigid in his arms for a second that Brad felt with his entire body and then he leaned into Brad, moving between Brad’s thighs and kissing him back. Brad tongued into his mouth, nipping and licking, as Nate ran his palms down Brad’s sides.

Finally after a moment, Brad pulled back, breathing hard. “We’re going to miss the movie.”

Nate smiled at him, lips chapped and reddened, high-color in his cheeks. “That’s okay.” He kissed Brad again, gasping into his mouth as Brad's hands came down to cup his ass and drag their dick's together. A shock of unexpected pleasure ran up Brad's spine. Nate nipped at Brad's earlobe and said, "Forgot how much you liked my ass."

"I never said that!" Brad protested, between harsh breaths. Laughter was the only response he got. The world tilted and realized Nate had used his weight to thrust them both over the back of the couch onto the cushions. It took a moment to orient themselves the right direction, but then he was kissing Nate all over again, messily, furiously. There was a sweet perfect friction between them and he pushed it further, drawing an arm around Nate's lower back to bring them even closer.

Nate's exhalation was a sharp, caught sound, like Brad had punched him, hard and unexpected. "C'mon, Brad," he said, "not like this, we're not sixteen."

"This works for me," Brad replied, scraping his teeth over Nate's throat. Nate managed to make his moan sound derisive. _He would._ Brad couldn't help being amused. Nate huffed and lifted his hips up enough to get a hand between them, tugging Brad's fly apart with practiced fingers. He licked his palm and then closed his fist around Brad's cock, grinning at the expression on his face. It was too much. Brad had to shut his eyes against it.

"Beautiful," Nate said, stripping his dick with even strokes.

"Don't...call me that," Brad replied, squeezing his eyes shut so tight he saw stars and the imprint of Nate's flushed cheeks and fever-bright green eyes on the back of his eyelids.

"Mmm, beautiful?" Nate asked, dragging the point of his tongue along the taut muscle in his neck. "But you are."

Brad came. He came to Nate calling him beautiful and staring down at him with those nonjudgmental green eyes. He shuddered in Nate's arms and Nate carried him through it, pressing soft kisses to his collarbone.

"And you?" Brad asked, bringing a thigh up to press against Nate's erection.

Nate hissed, biting into his lip. It was so innocuous, but it made Brad want to do the whole thing over again. Nate smiled, rocking indolently against his thigh before shaking himself and rolling off Brad.

He smiled and pulled off his shirt, tossing it in the direction of the bedroom. "I guess we'll find out."

Brad nodded, warmth in his stomach. It's an invitation that he didn't have to take. Nate was still giving him that out. Brad didsn't need it.

It took him a moment to realize Nate had wiped his come-covered hand off on Brad's shirt.

*


End file.
